What can be concluded through this study of geographical location?
1. Radcliffe Used Atlases as a Source
When studying the place names in The Romance of the Forest it becomes clear that Radcliffe employs three different sorts: 1) the real place, 2) the fictional place, and 3) the vaguely identified place. Oftentimes those place names she mentions that are actual would have been well-known and and oft-cited by her readers (Nice, Savoy, Paris, etc.). Those places that are fictional, however, can oftentimes still be located on the map but in an unrelated location. The town of Nemours is an excellent example of a town that, without looking at an atlas, Radcliffe may not have been familiar with, but which, after discovering it upon the map, became the last name of La Motte's Parisian confidant.
The final sort of place name also betrays an intimate knowledge of the geographical layout of France--the vaguely identified place markers ("L--," "V--") often correspond conveniently to cities beginning with that same letter. It would have been difficult for Radcliffe to have such an intimate knowledge of small towns in France without access to a physical map.
Such access to contemporary atlases, of course, would presumably not have been difficult. Radcliffe's husband, William Radcliffe was both an editor and a translator of travel-related texts. He translated Karl Hablitz's The Natural History of East Tartary (1789), and Henry Drevon's A Journey Through Sweden (1790) (both originally written in French). This, taken together with Ann Radcliffe's incorporation of travel documents in her own work, illuminates that the couple had both an interest in travel and geography and an interest in the French. Because Radcliffe worked so closely with travel literature and was an editor of The Gazatteer, it is not difficult to imagine that his profession would have required him to own geographical paraphernalia to aid his translations, of which atlases may have been a part.
Operating under this assumption, any study of location in Radcliffe's novels should not stop at the prose travel literature that informed her work, but should also include the contemporary atlases she would have referenced.
The final sort of place name also betrays an intimate knowledge of the geographical layout of France--the vaguely identified place markers ("L--," "V--") often correspond conveniently to cities beginning with that same letter. It would have been difficult for Radcliffe to have such an intimate knowledge of small towns in France without access to a physical map.
Such access to contemporary atlases, of course, would presumably not have been difficult. Radcliffe's husband, William Radcliffe was both an editor and a translator of travel-related texts. He translated Karl Hablitz's The Natural History of East Tartary (1789), and Henry Drevon's A Journey Through Sweden (1790) (both originally written in French). This, taken together with Ann Radcliffe's incorporation of travel documents in her own work, illuminates that the couple had both an interest in travel and geography and an interest in the French. Because Radcliffe worked so closely with travel literature and was an editor of The Gazatteer, it is not difficult to imagine that his profession would have required him to own geographical paraphernalia to aid his translations, of which atlases may have been a part.
Operating under this assumption, any study of location in Radcliffe's novels should not stop at the prose travel literature that informed her work, but should also include the contemporary atlases she would have referenced.
2. Radcliffe Expected Her Readers to Use Atlases
Many, many atlases were being printed in London at the time Radcliffe was writing Romance of the Forest. The texts varied in size from an expensive, large volume to an economical pocket-sized version like John Gibson’s Atlas Minimus. These atlases often included lengthy sections on how to interpret the maps included. In addition to this prefatory material, instruction books were being printed detailing how to make sense of new mapping technology, how to interpret the legend, etc., and were mostly marketed (as is Gibson's) to school-aged young adults.
It is not difficult to imagine, then, that when a young person read Radcliffe’s novel and was terrified by the Abbey of St. Clair, or was taken in by the description of Savoy, that they would attempt to locate these places on a map.
It is not difficult to imagine, then, that when a young person read Radcliffe’s novel and was terrified by the Abbey of St. Clair, or was taken in by the description of Savoy, that they would attempt to locate these places on a map.
3. Gothic Romance is Otherwordly, and Not Necessarily in a Good Way
What’s interesting about Radcliffe’s use of place names in the three different ways listed above is that she is both extremely detailed in her geographical accounts in some places, and extremely vague in others. Generally, the text is most vague in two places: during the characters’ journey to/from and stay at the Abbey of St. Clair, and during their stay in Vaceau.
In the first case, Radcliffe obscures the amount of time it takes to arrive at the Abbey, mars names of places they pass, and gets her characters lost in the forest in order to conceal the location of the Abbey from her readers. On the way out of the forest, Adeline and Peter traverse land that should take them three times as long to travel, and list no place names along the way.
This place, which harbors the height of the book's gothic sensibility, and literally falls off the map, I have termed the 'world of romance.' This world of romance exists almost in a parallel dimension to the real world--rules of time and space do not apply there.
Of course, this alternate dimension could simply be, as Robert Mighall argues “a degree of distance…fundamental to Gothic fiction” (40). Mighall explains that “in the early tradition, historical and/or geographical distancing ensured that the world of the text (the scene of terrors) and the world of the reader are kept separate.” Certainly, by setting her gothic fiction in an unlocatable abbey in the forest, Radcliffe is succeeding in such distancing.
However, by plotting locations in the Romance of the Forest on a physical map, it becomes apparent that not all of Radcliffe’s novel takes part in such a starkly separated world. The world of romance is almost over the top in its distancing. If Radcliffe had desired such separation of reader from text, certainly setting the novel in France (which had just finished opposing England in the Revolutionary War) and in the previous century would have had that effect. By further obscuring the world of romance in relationship to these already-foreign things, Radcliffe draws attention to this hazy area of heightened sensibility as specifically not locatable in the real world--as specifically not real.
As the other large section of the book occurs in places that would, to the contemporary reader, have been commonplace (and, as many scholars have pointed out, were anachronistically representative of contemporary English society despite their historical setting), the world of romance is highlighted as completely distinct from, and, most potently, impossible to access from the real world.
This latter move by Radcliffe looks critically at the gothic novel's place within the larger world of print, and adopts a critical distance from her own work that is not traditionally ascribed to her. What is surprisingly apparent after mapping Radcliffe’s cities is that if her readers did, indeed, seek to find these locations on a map, the only ones they would find were the ones that reinforced the traditional ideas of family (Savoy, Paris), marriage (St. Maur), duty (Paris), kinship (Savoy), and tranquility (Nice, Montpellier). Had they tried to find those cities that harbored extreme emotion (Vaceau), sinister events or gothic buildings (Auboine, Fontainville Forest, Marquis’ chateau), they would have been unsuccessful. By this simple dichotomization, Radcliffe departs from the romantic notions generally ascribed to her, and subtly sends a didactic message: romance is nothing but fiction, and a life of happiness and stability is not found there.
On the other hand, obscuring place names simultaneously opens the possibility for the fiction to exist at all. In a world where travelers were using atlases and travel narratives to guide them on long journeys, it's not difficult to imagine that lovers of Radcliffe's gothic novels would attempt a pilgrimmage to various places mentioned there. Surely, in a world whose sensibilities were pleased with manufactured gothic landscapes, the Abbey of St. Clair, if identified, would have become a bustling tourist attraction. The important point is, though: no one can find the Abbey. If Radcliffe had chosen to locate the gothic sections of her novel in an extant abbey in a well-identified forest, the fiction of Romance of the Forest would have become starkly apparent. Because no one knows exactly where Radcliffe's Abbey of St. Clair is (indeed, at points, it seems as if she doesn't know herself), its existence cannot be disproven.
Thus, in the end, the geographic locations in Romance of the Forest draw a comparison between the terror and otherworldliness of romance on the one hand, and the stability and tranquility of a settled family life on the other. The inability of the reader to locate the world of romance—that area that, critics argue, they would have been most interested in—is frustrating in its assertion that such a world cannot ever be found and, according to Radcliffe's assignment of solidarity and tranquility to every place but those, should not be found. But ultimately, by frustrating the reader’s attempts to locate the world of romance, Radcliffe simultaneously preserves it—rendering it an unbreakable fiction, unable to be disproven, and consequently, more marketable.
In the first case, Radcliffe obscures the amount of time it takes to arrive at the Abbey, mars names of places they pass, and gets her characters lost in the forest in order to conceal the location of the Abbey from her readers. On the way out of the forest, Adeline and Peter traverse land that should take them three times as long to travel, and list no place names along the way.
This place, which harbors the height of the book's gothic sensibility, and literally falls off the map, I have termed the 'world of romance.' This world of romance exists almost in a parallel dimension to the real world--rules of time and space do not apply there.
Of course, this alternate dimension could simply be, as Robert Mighall argues “a degree of distance…fundamental to Gothic fiction” (40). Mighall explains that “in the early tradition, historical and/or geographical distancing ensured that the world of the text (the scene of terrors) and the world of the reader are kept separate.” Certainly, by setting her gothic fiction in an unlocatable abbey in the forest, Radcliffe is succeeding in such distancing.
However, by plotting locations in the Romance of the Forest on a physical map, it becomes apparent that not all of Radcliffe’s novel takes part in such a starkly separated world. The world of romance is almost over the top in its distancing. If Radcliffe had desired such separation of reader from text, certainly setting the novel in France (which had just finished opposing England in the Revolutionary War) and in the previous century would have had that effect. By further obscuring the world of romance in relationship to these already-foreign things, Radcliffe draws attention to this hazy area of heightened sensibility as specifically not locatable in the real world--as specifically not real.
As the other large section of the book occurs in places that would, to the contemporary reader, have been commonplace (and, as many scholars have pointed out, were anachronistically representative of contemporary English society despite their historical setting), the world of romance is highlighted as completely distinct from, and, most potently, impossible to access from the real world.
This latter move by Radcliffe looks critically at the gothic novel's place within the larger world of print, and adopts a critical distance from her own work that is not traditionally ascribed to her. What is surprisingly apparent after mapping Radcliffe’s cities is that if her readers did, indeed, seek to find these locations on a map, the only ones they would find were the ones that reinforced the traditional ideas of family (Savoy, Paris), marriage (St. Maur), duty (Paris), kinship (Savoy), and tranquility (Nice, Montpellier). Had they tried to find those cities that harbored extreme emotion (Vaceau), sinister events or gothic buildings (Auboine, Fontainville Forest, Marquis’ chateau), they would have been unsuccessful. By this simple dichotomization, Radcliffe departs from the romantic notions generally ascribed to her, and subtly sends a didactic message: romance is nothing but fiction, and a life of happiness and stability is not found there.
On the other hand, obscuring place names simultaneously opens the possibility for the fiction to exist at all. In a world where travelers were using atlases and travel narratives to guide them on long journeys, it's not difficult to imagine that lovers of Radcliffe's gothic novels would attempt a pilgrimmage to various places mentioned there. Surely, in a world whose sensibilities were pleased with manufactured gothic landscapes, the Abbey of St. Clair, if identified, would have become a bustling tourist attraction. The important point is, though: no one can find the Abbey. If Radcliffe had chosen to locate the gothic sections of her novel in an extant abbey in a well-identified forest, the fiction of Romance of the Forest would have become starkly apparent. Because no one knows exactly where Radcliffe's Abbey of St. Clair is (indeed, at points, it seems as if she doesn't know herself), its existence cannot be disproven.
Thus, in the end, the geographic locations in Romance of the Forest draw a comparison between the terror and otherworldliness of romance on the one hand, and the stability and tranquility of a settled family life on the other. The inability of the reader to locate the world of romance—that area that, critics argue, they would have been most interested in—is frustrating in its assertion that such a world cannot ever be found and, according to Radcliffe's assignment of solidarity and tranquility to every place but those, should not be found. But ultimately, by frustrating the reader’s attempts to locate the world of romance, Radcliffe simultaneously preserves it—rendering it an unbreakable fiction, unable to be disproven, and consequently, more marketable.
